Sensory irritants which are also known as tear gas compositions are widely used today by military forces and civilian police establishments as riot control agents and to force the egress of human beings from a selected zone. In the past, liquid sensory irritants, such as ethylbromoacetate and chloropicrin, have been used. However, they are no longer used today because they are considered to be too toxic.
All of the commonly employed sensory irritants employed today are solids. Examples of presently employed solid sensory irritants include: 1-chloroacetophenone, commonly referred to as "CN", also available under the trademark MACE; o-chlorobenzlidene malononitrile, commonly known as "CS"; and dibenz (b.f.)-1,4-oxazepine, commonly known as "CR". In order to effectively employ these solid sensory irritants, it is necessary to reduce them to small particles having a diameter of approximately 60 .mu.m. Reduction of the solid sensory irritants to such a small particle size is commonly effected by combining the solid irritant with a pyrotechnic material or delivering the solid sensory irritant in an exploding grenade.
Unfortunately, grenades are hazardous if exploded within approximately twenty feet of personnel owing to the possibility of eye damage from solid fragments. Moreover, when pyrotechnical grenades are employed in enclosed zones, such as in buildings or houses, they can cause extensive property damage by starting fires.
Another disadvantage of the use of presently employed solid sensory irritants is the problem of decontaminating personnel and zones exposed to the solid sensory irritants.
In an attempt to overcome the above problems, the solid sensory irritants have been dissolved in organic solvents to form a solution. This solution has been placed in a shotgun shell or some other type of small munition. Unfortunately, the shell frequently hits a wall or other solid object with the result that the solution drops to the floor, resulting in slow and ineffective dispersal of the sensory irritant or hits a double wall partition causing the solution to remain between the walls.
Decontamination in the case of solid sensory irritants is especially troublesome. A room contaminated with a solid sensory irritant will produce a secondary aerosol from the solid particles remaining in the room. These secondary aerosols effectively prevent the entry into the room of police officers unless they are equipped with gas masks.
A particularly troublesome situation occurs when police desire to confine a suspect who has been exposed to a solid sensory irritant. When placed in the back of a police squad car, the secondary aerosol produced by the solid sensory irritant on the clothes of the suspect can make it impossible for a police officer to drive the squad car without the aid of a gas mask. Furthermore, when a suspect having a solid sensory irritant on his clothes is confined in a jail cell, he and other inmates frequently continue to suffer from the secondary aerosols. While decontamination is possible, it is time-consuming and especially troublesome when large numbers of contaminated suspects have been simultaneously apprehended.
Other sensory irritants have been considered but have been rejected because they cause permanent damage to the eyes and lungs. Other proposed sensory irritants cannot be employed because they are carcinogenic, and/or mutagenic, or cause adverse effects on the blood, liver, kidneys, or internal organs.
Presently employed dispensers for sensory irritants suffer from a large number of disadvantages. When these dispensers are in the form of missiles to be fired into rooms through doors or windows, they frequently miss. In the alternative, when they pass through the door or the window, they can injure the occupants of the room. Most of these dispensers have poor ballistic properties making it difficult to accurately propel them through the air with any accuracy. At the present time, there is no convenient, safe method for disbursing sensory irritants directly through a wall or a door into a room.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved sensory irritant, an improved sensory irritant composition and an improved sensory irritant dispenser, all of which are substantially free of one or more of the disadvantages of the prior art.
Another object is to provide an improved sensory irritant that does not have to be employed in the form of a finely-divided solid.
Still another object is to provide an improved sensory irritant that does not require the use of pyrotechnic devices for its dispersal.
Yet another object is to provide an improved sensory irritant that can be easily decontaminated from zones where it is employed and from the clothes of subjects on which it is employed.
Yet another object is to provide an improved sensory irritant that can be rapidly dispersed in its zone of use.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide an improved sensory irritant which is safe; does not cause permanent damage to eyes, nose, throat or lungs; is not carcinogenic; is not mutagenic; and does not adversely affect the blood or internal organs of subjects exposed to it.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide an improved dispenser which can be employed with the sensory irritants of the present invention and with other sensory irritants to directly deliver the sensory irritants into a room through a door or a wall.
The above and other objects of the present invention are accomplished by providing a method for safely forcing the egress of human beings from a zone by supplying the zone with an irritating amount of 1-methoxy-1,3,5-cycloheptatriene.
According to another aspect of the present invention, an improved composition useful as a sensory irritant is provided. The composition comprises 1-methoxy-1,3,5-cycloheptatriene; an anti-oxidant; and a volatile non-aqueous solvent. In this composition, the solvent is present in an amount sufficient to dissolve the 1-methoxy-1,3,5-cycloheptatriene. The anti-oxidant is present in an amount sufficient to prevent the oxidation of the 1-methoxy-1,3,5-cycloheptatriene.
According to yet another aspect of the present invention, a dispenser is provided having a spike that can be employed to penetrate the wall or door into a room and thereby supply the room with 1-methoxy-1,3,5-cycloheptatriene, a composition containing 1-methoxy-1,3,5-cycloheptatriene, or any other liquid sensory irritant.